Discuss Dynamically with Voicethread

VoiceThread is a great web tool if you have never seen it.  It allows someone to create a discussion around media, whether that media be images, videos, audio, text, whatever...  So, say for instance you want your students to discuss elements of Leonardo da Vinci's Mona Lisa.  You could import an image of the painting from, say, Flickr's Creative Commons into VoiceThread, start the discussion by asking questions or making comments that will lead your students' comments.

Here is an example. The discussion creator explores the crisis in Darfur through political cartoons.

Math teachers often find it difficult to incorporate the web tools explored in the Challenge.  Here is a simple idea for using Voicethread to, literally, illustrate various problem solving strategies.

So, how do you create a VoiceThread?  Here is a short tutorial on the process created by yours truly!

odiogo Text-to-Speech (a Multi-Tasker's Dream)

Notice the "listen now" button above each of the posts on this blog?  It is from a web site called Odiogo and it translates the text in a blog post into speech... Why is that useful?  Well, for starters, followers of your blog can listen to your posts as they do other things.  They can also subscribe to your posts as a podcast- fed into iTunes or another aggregator, or put on an MP3 device so they can listen to your posts while they drive, walk, etc.  OR your students, especially the ones who need a little help reading your posts, can listen to the posts as they read along!  Check it out.  To get it installed on your blog just visit http://www.odiogo.com/, submit your blog address and email address, and verify that you are the owner of the blog.  Simple and powerful.

http://www.odiogo.com/

Scoop It, Not Stupid!

When Dottie Black, my friend and colleague from the Duke-PepsiCo Technology Mentor Program, first told me about Scoop It, I thought she said, "stupid".  Once I correctly heard her and she showed me what Scoop It does, I realized it definitely is not stupid!  Scoop It is a topic-centric curating service.  It allows you to collect resources from around the Web relevant to a certain topic.  Rather than just listing links to the sites, it displays a stream of the sites you have embedded or searched for.  So, for example, I have created a Scoop It about participants of the Fall 2011 DPS Technology Challenge and embedded the product below.  Definitely NOT stupid!

2nd Chances

istock.com

We at the DPS Technology Challenge take all comers.  This includes folks who began the summer edition of the Technology Challenge but were unable to finish for whatever reason.  If this sounds like you, feel free to use the blog you used this summer and the work that you did complete and that applies in order to complete this edition!  Good luck!

Face-to-Face Open Labs

One of the (I hope) improvements to the Fall 2011 edition of the DPS Technology Challenge is the addition of Face-to-Face Open Labs.  These open labs will be non-structured sessions that provide Challenge participants the opportunity to get in-person assistance from the DPS Educational Technology team.  In order to attend a session, a registered participant simply needs to visit the Face-to-Face Open Labs page and indicate which session(s) he or she intends on attending. 

Welcome!

DPS Technology Challenge! on Prezi

Details:

Starts:  October 1, 2011

Ends: December 31, 2011

Credits: 1.0 CEU (10 Hours) for the 2011-2012 cycle (August 1, 2011 to July 31, 2011)

Registration: Complete Challenge One (Your info. will be added to My Learning Plan by the Educational Technology Team)

Prizes: To be determined 

The DPS Technology Challenge is an online independent study program.  Teachers work at their own pace to explore, learn, and share.  

Credit will be earned by teachers who accomplish the tasks outlined in the Challenges and Challenge Checklist/Exit Ticket.  Look for the word "Required!" next to tasks in the challenge.  Each required task will be checked for credit.  Once participants complete the Challenge, they will complete and submit the Challenge Checklist/Exit Ticket.  

Participating teachers are encouraged to seek out answers to their questions using all resources available including each tool's/web site's help section, other participating teachers, the DPS Educational Technology team (submit a question using the form on the right), and general Internet searches.